U.S., Iraqi Forces Break Up Rebel Camp

U.S. and Iraqi forces overran an insurgent encampment in a fierce overnight battle east of the capital, military officials said Tuesday.

Two American troops and an Iraqi soldier were killed in the fighting that left 17 insurgents dead. Two U.S. servicemen and at least eight insurgents died in other clashes across Iraq. A television cameraman also was injured by U.S. forces.

The battle, which began Monday, was the third major clash in two weeks. Insurgents appeared to be adding larger-scale attacks to their campaign of car bombings and assassinations.

More than 40 U.S. soldiers were injured Saturday defending the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad against a bold insurgent strike supported by mortar fire and rocket-propelled grenades. On March 21, more than two dozen insurgents were killed in an ambush of a U.S. convoy in the Salman Pak area, about 20 miles southeast of Baghdad.

Unlike those assaults, the fighting Monday night on farmland 30 miles east of Baghdad resulted from an Iraqi army operation. Acting on a tip, two Iraqi battalions were searching the sparsely populated area for a suspected weapons cache when two dozen to three dozen insurgents began firing at them.

The Iraqi forces “were acting on intelligence, and apparently it was good intelligence,” said Maj. Richard Goldenberg, spokesman for the 42nd Infantry Division of the U.S. Army National Guard.

The insurgents fired mortar rounds and rocket-propelled grenades from prepared positions to defend their camp, Goldenberg said.

About 100 U.S. soldiers with the 287th Regimental Combat Team, supported by helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft, joined the fight. Sometime during the night, the insurgents pulled out, leaving 17 of their dead. None was captured.

Goldenberg said the area was laced by gullies and canals, making it perfect for hiding weapons. But he said there were no buildings or supplies indicating that it was a permanent base. Vehicles left behind by the insurgents apparently had provided them transit from Baghdad.

It appeared to be a case of insurgents “moving away from populated areas to find safe refuge,” Goldenberg said. “That obviously failed.”

In south Baghdad, one U.S. soldier was killed Tuesday and four were injured when their convoy was bombed. A Marine was killed Monday by an explosion during combat operations in the western Al Anbar province.

Meanwhile, U.S. forces killed eight insurgents in separate incidents in northern Iraq.

In Mosul, at the site of an earlier suicide bombing, soldiers killed a man who was waving an AK-47 to incite a crowd, the military said.

They also wounded a journalist, after mistaking his video camera for a weapon. He was being treated at a military hospital and was expected to recover, the military said.

Soldiers on patrol in northeastern Mosul killed two insurgents attempting to plant a bomb, the military said. The device exploded but caused no injuries.

In western Mosul, four insurgents were killed at a checkpoint when they pulled out weapons, and a fifth was killed while attempting to plant a car bomb, officials said.

Violence flared elsewhere in Iraq on Tuesday. A car bomb exploded at an Iraqi army checkpoint on the road to the Baghdad airport, killing a civilian. In the southern city of Basra, one Iraqi officer was killed and two injured when a bomb detonated near their convoy.

In Hillah, 60 miles south of Baghdad, an Iraqi was shot to death as he was on his way to work, and a general in the Iraqi army was abducted from his home by armed men, Associated Press reported.

In the central city of Baqubah, gunmen wounded a government translator and killed her father in a drive-by shooting, said Brig. Gen. Adil Molan Ghaidan of the Diyala provincial police.

Also Tuesday, the Iraqi government released its first comprehensive report of civilian casualties, saying that guerrillas and criminal gangs have killed 6,000 civilians and wounded 16,000 in the last two years, Reuters reported.

Bakhtiar Amin, minister of human rights, issued the report covering the period since the U.S.-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein two years ago.

The report also says there have been about 5,000 known kidnappings of Iraqis either for political purposes or for ransom.